April 09, 2013

James Publishing, which publishes books for lawyers, has started a new Attorney Education Center on its website. The Education Center provides free books and guides, with new titles added each month. Here's what's available now--

There's a lot here for free. For example, Proving Mental & Emotional Injuries,
by John D. Winer, Richard B. Pesikoff, and Richard T. Goldberg, is 1,170 pages long and includes 54 forms. From the website--

This comprehensive title reveals the case workup and persuasion
secrets that the lead author used to turn five low-or-no-offer, pure
psychological injury cases into seven-figure verdicts. Step-by-step, you
will learn how to convince cynical adjusters, defense attorneys,
judges, and jurors of the reality and seriousness of mental and
emotional injury cases.

December 10, 2012

Ernie Svenson's new book Blogging in One Hour For Lawyers (ABA 2012) is targeted at lawyers who don't blog yet but want to learn how. It's a nicely-produced and well-written book. It certainly accomplishes its main goal: teaching lawyers what they need to know to start blogging right away, with clear, step-by-step examples and useful appendices and checklists.

Ernie Svenson is, of course, the author of the blog Ernie the Attorney, which was one of the only law-related blogs I read before starting this blog back in 2004. Svenson sent me a copy of his new book as a gift. Because I'm highly-invested in the question of blogs for lawyers--having kept two blogs going without interruption for nine years (!!!)--I got to work immediately reading the book.

The surprise is how useful Blogging in One Hour for Lawyers would be for veteran bloggers too. In addition to the basics, Svenson also covers a number of technical issues, e.g., domain names, domain mapping, blog promotion, and RSS feeds.

Before I had even finished with the book, I made a change to my blogs based on one of Svenson's recommendations, which was to link my blogs more closely to my Twitter account. I also paid close attention to Svenson's insights into the ethics of blogging, "dealing with criticism," and "best tips for success" ("be honest and down-to-earth about what you believe and why you believe it.")

October 25, 2012

The book is a compilation of some of the writing I've done over the years at my other blog. Although I'm fully aware that the world doesn't need more blog compilations, I'm publishing mine anyway, mostly for the reasons I noted in the book's foreword, which you can read for free by clicking "look inside the book" at Amazon.

Though some of the selections in the book are still being read daily at The Legal Underground (a/k/a Beyond the Underground), I'm willing to bet that no one has read all of the posts I've included--about 125 posts from a total of over 3000. Most of these posts were written without internal links (which don't translate well into book form), specifically because I hoped one day to collect them in print.

You can read more about the book at Amazon. Both the book's description as well as its Table of Contents (available by "looking inside the book") will give you a good idea of what's inside.

I've already sent How to Feed a Lawyer to a number of bloggers and writers who expressed interest in my writing over the years. I'm willing to send out more. If you're a blogger who wants a review copy, send me an email and I'll be happy to oblige.

July 20, 2012

Mark's posts, much like the Curmudgeon's Guide, offers thoughts and advice that can be read on two levels. On the surface, they offer fairly basic thoughts that reflect sound judgment and seasoned experience, such as outside counsel hopefuls pitching for business aren't going to get anywhere by telling why they're exactly the same as everyone else. On a deeper level, however, it's a metaphor for the failure of legal marketing in general. Most of Mark's in-house observations remain true for all of us, from solo criminal defense lawyers to, well, who cares.

December 13, 2011

The new revision contains a number of new practice tips, a section listing practice tips by type and category, a long appendix featuring real-life deposition transcripts for study, and much more.

Here's a testimonial about the book from Ross Mann, an attorney whom I don't know, yet who was kind enough to email me last month about my book--

Your deposition book was INSTRUMENTAL in my first deposition. I proceeded to take my first adverse dep without ever having seen a dep in my life--and I had full confidence because I thoroughly studied your book. Thanks so much for the work!

You can view and print a detailed brochure about Deposition Checklists and Strategiesat this link (pdf).